Infiltration, espionage, sabotage, bribery and countermeasures

[zoot]

The most attractive feature for a developer would be good documentation. I'm used to work with SVN, i just don't have much time to focus on a language and large bunch of code i'm not familiar with. I'm trying to help with the AI, though, that is easier to understand.

Out of curiosity, how many major contributions to other projects have you made in the form of patches? Even stwf who made the new sound manager was eventually given SVN commit access, because (I assume) maintaining such a big system through patches just doesn't make sense.

[Pedro Falcão]

Out of curiosity, how many major contributions to other projects have you made in the form of patches? Even stwf who made the new sound manager was eventually given SVN commit access, because (I assume) maintaining such a big system through patches just doesn't make sense.

besides a minor contribution with Blender translation (some versions ago) i can't say i did much. But i mean i did all my programming projects using SVN, and, for god's sake, it's hell hard to coordinate the job, but i find it harder to face thousands of lines of a code you're not familiar with and in a language you're not very confident in, don't you agree? Once you've broken that "unfamiliarness" barrier, you'll of course look forward to solve the SVN problem, but this first barrier is the worst.

[zoot]

besides a minor contribution with Blender translation (some versions ago) i can't say i did much. But i mean i did all my programming projects using SVN, and, for god's sake, it's hell hard to coordinate the job, but i find it harder to face thousands of lines of a code you're not familiar with and in a language you're not very confident in, don't you agree? Once you've broken that "unfamiliarness" barrier, you'll of course look forward to solve the SVN problem, but this first barrier is the worst.

I agree that it is difficult to become accustomed to the codebase, but I've found that even after I have familiarized myself with some small part of it, the whole process of making patches, getting feedback, making more patches etc. keeps being drag - you can dedicate some time to overcome the 'familiarity' issue, but the process for getting your changes integrated keeps being a PITA no matter what you do.

[quantumstate]

I agree that it is difficult to become accustomed to the codebase, but I've found that even after I have familiarized myself with some small part of it, the whole process of making patches, getting feedback, making more patches etc. keeps being drag - you can dedicate some time to overcome the 'familiarity' issue, but the process for getting your changes integrated keeps being a PITA no matter what you do.

Making a patch should be as simple as running one command with svn. Do we need clearer instructions for how to do this, surely it isn't too onerous? Apart from that step the rest will remain identical. New code will still be reviewed, so the whole getting feedback and making changes step will remain the same. Applying the patches is a bit more of a pain for me since patch applying tools don't seem to like me.

[zoot]

Making a patch should be as simple as running one command with svn. Do we need clearer instructions for how to do this, surely it isn't too onerous? Apart from that step the rest will remain identical. New code will still be reviewed, so the whole getting feedback and making changes step will remain the same. Applying the patches is a bit more of a pain for me since patch applying tools don't seem to like me.

I guess it is to some extent personal preference/habit, but it just feels overly manual. The 'svn diff' in itself is simple enough, but then you need to find somewhere to dump it, name it without overwriting something you will need later, open Trac in a web browser, find the right file again in an upload dialog, upload it, wait for someone to go through twice the hassle of applying it again on their end, and hope that they are on the same revision and has the prerequisite patches applied, and then if the patch applies, they may want to make a tweak to send back to you, and then you go through the whole process again with the roles reversed.

In Git I do: git commit; git push. Then I ask someone to have a look and they do: git checkout. Then they make their tweaks and do: git commit; git push. Then I do: git checkout. Done.

Often I will not even need to touch Trac. I can just tell them to have look via IRC or they find out by themselves from my commit feed and catch up without me saying anything. Overall, in my experience, it is so much more fluid and, frankly, natural.

[Pedro Falcão]

I guess it is to some extent personal preference/habit, but it just feels overly manual. The 'svn diff' in itself is simple enough, but then you need to find somewhere to dump it, name it without overwriting something you will need later, open Trac in a web browser, find the right file again in an upload dialog, upload it, wait for someone to go through twice the hassle of applying it again on their end, and hope that they are on the same revision and has the prerequisite patches applied, and then if the patch applies, they may want to make a tweak to send back to you, and then you go through the whole process again with the roles reversed.

In Git I do: git commit; git push. Then I ask someone to have a look and they do: git checkout. Then they make their tweaks and do: git commit; git push. Then I do: git checkout. Done.

Often I will not even need to touch Trac. I can just tell them to have look via IRC or they find out by themselves from my commit feed and catch up without me saying anything. Overall, in my experience, it is so much more fluid and, frankly, natural.

I use Eclipse for programming with the plugin Subclipse for subversion. It doesn't offer the option to show someone what you've done, but it offers some shortcuts to compare different versions and all that.

[alkazar-ipse]

I don't really like this spy idea... In age of 3 there are spys, bearly ever used by any serious player...

If you limit the features, and make them have a real purpose, else then just playing spys, which costs a lot of micro...

then, yeah, i must admit I'm just not smart enough to imagine rigth now what it would be like, maybe it can be something positiv to the gameplay, but i remain very sceptic for now untill i see something concret

Edited October 10, 2012 by alkazar-ipse

[Pedro Falcão]

I don't really like this spy idea... In age of 3 there are spys, bearly ever used by any serious player...

If you limit the features, and make them have a real purpose, else then just playing spys, which costs a lot of micro...

then, yeah, i must admit I'm just not smart enough to imagine rigth now what it would be like, maybe it can be something positiv to the gameplay, but i remain very sceptic for now untill i see something concret

Rise of Nations featured 3 kinds of special units (with no basic attack): Generals, Spies and Scouts.

Generals just provided some passive bonus for nearby units (armor, healing, supply in enemy territory), depending on which kind of general, and strategic abilities, like AoE invisbility for a short amount time, increased speed for a short time and trenches.

Scouts are very good at what they are named for, with large LoS and relatively fast moving speed, but they can also sabotage buildings and snipe shot one unit (costs half of the unit's "craft").

Spies could bribe units, retrieve information from buildings and kill other spies. Spies are invisible to all but the Scouts, Helicopters, Light (military) Ships and, of course, other spies.

[NoMolester]

What about this:

The purpose of the spy is to wknow what is happening in the enemy base.

So, the spy would be like this:

A caomuflaged unit that only appears visible when an enemy unit is 2 tiles from it (or whatever) and it will become invisible again when no enemy is watching him.

If you want to spy a settlement you would position the spy near the city but not inside it and call a button called "messenger pigeon or soomething" and it will fly to the point you tell it and show what is happening there, the spy will have a renge (diferent from the LOS) that range will be the range where he can send his pigeon to spy. So he will have to go near the city and then send his pigeon over the city to the marked poin. It will last several seconds and have decent LOS. He might also have another button to send another pigeons to spy inside the building (withing the spy's range).

Only other spies and heroes can detect spies in their LOS. But if you move near them you detect them too.

And thats it, its simple and solves the "how to make the spy undetectable but yet detectable" problems.

[alpha123]

Because, after all, pigeons are excellent at gathering intelligence.

...I'm not following you.

[NoMolester]

Like in praetorians ¬¬

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Nonetheless, merely because it was in another game does not validefy your suggestion.

[NoMolester]

"...I'm not following you."

He said he didn't get what i was trying to say.

It's an example, not an argument.

[Loki1950]

The pigeon carnies a message back to your Civ Center Map and troop numbers etc. But enemy scouts may have falcons to prey on those messenger birds.

Enjoy the Choice

[Lion.Kanzen]

The pigeon carnies a message back to your Civ Center Map and troop numbers etc. But enemy scouts may have falcons to prey on those messenger birds.

Enjoy the Choice

like this

[NoMolester]

Exactly like that Lion, perhaps not so long ranged.

its simple and efficient.

You don't risk your spy that much (but you must be NEAR the city) and you can spy their city without having to invent weird rules for spying.

[alpha123]

Like in praetorians ¬¬

Unfortunately I'm unfamiliar with Praetorians.

Honestly, using birds to spy seems overly complicated and frankly somewhat ridiculous.

[Pedro Falcão]

Honestly, using birds to spy seems overly complicated and frankly somewhat ridiculous.

I have to agree with you here.

Well, would the bird tell the owner how many troops were there?

Maybe using birds to locate animals for hunting would be okay, but frankly I don't think it would be worth the work of the programmers and artists. I'd stick with the human spies.

[NoMolester]

Camoufllaged human spies?

Or just an explorer like unit with lots of LOS?

[Pedro Falcão]

We have cavalry for explorer, we need someone to infiltrate the enemy base, imo. So it would be cool to have a spy see what's going on there so you can plan countermeasures (let's say if the enemy trains too many heavy cavalry, now that you got the information, you'll train spearmen to counter their cavalry). Or, who knows, to open a gate for a short amount of time for your troops to enter. There are many possible missions, we just have to see which of them are cool to add IF a spy is indeed implemented.

[Lion.Kanzen]

We have cavalry for explorer, we need someone to infiltrate the enemy base, imo. So it would be cool to have a spy see what's going on there so you can plan countermeasures (let's say if the enemy trains too many heavy cavalry, now that you got the information, you'll train spearmen to counter their cavalry). Or, who knows, to open a gate for a short amount of time for your troops to enter. There are many possible missions, we just have to see which of them are cool to add IF a spy is indeed implemented.

scout and Spy are not same type unit, one is Cloacked the other just a long LOS.i like more the a spy like RON game.

[oshron]

for simplicity, i'd say that all that's really needed for a spy unit is to give them an enormous line of sight and make them invisible to most units and buildings, so they can travel unhindered to most places and observe for the player

[Lion.Kanzen]

for simplicity, i'd say that all that's really needed for a spy unit is to give them an enormous line of sight and make them invisible to most units and buildings, so they can travel unhindered to most places and observe for the player

ANd what are the unuts that are Visible. i like that, remembers me Starcraft Cloaked units, ghost that make mission, like Black Ops missions.

[Pedro Falcão]

ANd what are the unuts that are Visible. i like that, remembers me Starcraft Cloaked units, ghost that make mission, like Black Ops missions.

I try to take Starcraft invisible units as an example, but we must take care to not make our spies so great an advantage as those from SC2, where you only find you are losing when you see the nuclear bombs falling, the cloaked voodoo ships attacking your workers, the zerglings burried beneath your whole marine army or the dark templars destroying wherever you don't have detectors...

[Lion.Kanzen]

I try to take Starcraft invisible units as an example, but we must take care to not make our spies so great an advantage as those from SC2, where you only find you are losing when you see the nuclear bombs falling, the cloaked voodoo ships attacking your workers, the zerglings burried beneath your whole marine army or the dark templars destroying wherever you don't have detectors...

i figure like heroes, pop limit max 5 maybe.